The Romanian language has a phoneme inventory of seven vowels, two or four semivowels (disputed), and twenty consonants. Other phonemes are found in interjections or recent borrowings.
Romanian includes the two unusual diphthongs and and the central vowel .
Vowels
There are seven monophthongs:
Front Central Back Close Mid Open
The table below gives examples for each vowel. Vowel Description Examples Open central unrounded apă ('water') balaur ('dragon') cânta ('to sing') Mid front unrounded erou ('hero') necaz ('trouble') umple ('to fill') Close front unrounded insulă ('island') salcie ('willow') topi ('to melt') Mid back rounded oraș ('city') copil ('child') acolo ('there') Close back rounded uda ('to wet') aduc ('I bring') simplu ('simple') Mid central unrounded ăsta ('this') păros ('hairy') albă ('white [fem. sg.]') Close central unrounded înspre ('toward') cârnat ('sausage') coborî ('to descend')
Although most of these vowels are relatively straightforward and similar or identical to those in many other languages, the close central unrounded vowel is uncommon as a phoneme and especially uncommon amongst Indo-European languages.
According to , is phonetically open-mid somewhat retracted central , rather than mid central.
Less frequent vowels
ö In addition to the seven core vowels, in a number of words of foreign origin (predominantly French, but also German) the mid front rounded vowel (rounded Romanian ; example word: bleu 'light blue') and the mid central rounded vowel (rounded Romanian ; example word: chemin de fer 'Chemin de Fer') have been preserved, without replacing them with any of the existing phonemes.Academia Română, Dicționarul ortografic, ortoepic și morfologic al limbii române, Ediția a II-a revăzută și adăugită, Editura Univers Enciclopedic, București, 2005 The borrowed words have become part of the Romanian vocabulary and follow the usual inflexion rules, so that the new vowels, though less common, could be considered as part of the Romanian phoneme set. Many Romanian dictionaries use in their phonetic descriptions to represent both vowels.
Because they are not native phonemes, their pronunciation may fluctuate or they may even be replaced by the diphthong . In older French borrowings it has often been replaced by , , or , as in șofer ('driver', from French chauffeur), masor ('masseur', from masseur), and sufleor ('theater prompter', from souffleur).
ü Similarly, borrowings from languages such as French and German sometimes contain the close front rounded vowel : ecru , tul , führer . The symbol used for it in phonetic notations in Romanian dictionaries is . Educated speakers usually pronounce it , but other realizations such as also occur. Older words that originally had this sound have had it replaced with , , or . For instance, Turkish kül became ghiul ('large ring'), Turkish tütün became tutun ('tobacco'), but tiutiun in the Moldavian dialect, German Düse gave duză ('nozzle') and French bureau became birou ('desk', 'office').
Diphthongs and triphthongs According to Ioana Chițoran, Romanian has two diphthongs: and . As a result of their origin (diphthongization of mid vowels under stress), they appear normally in stressed syllables and make morphological alternations with the mid vowels and .
In addition to these, the semivowels and can be combined (either before, after, or both) with most vowels. One view considers that only and can follow an obstruent-liquid cluster such as in broască ('frog') and dreagă ('to mend') and form real diphthongs, whereas the rest are merely vowel–glide sequences.See for one overview regarding Romanian semivowels The traditional view (taught in schools) considers all of the above as diphthongs.
Falling Diphthong Examples mai ('May'), aisberg ('iceberg') sau ('or'), august ('August') lei ('lions'), trei ('three') greu ('heavy'), mereu ('always') mii ('thousands'), vii ('you come') fiu ('son'), scriu ('I write') oi ('sheep [pl.]'), noi ('we') ou ('egg'), bou ('ox') pui ('you put'), gălbui ('yellowish') continuu ('continuous') răi ('bad [masc. pl.]'), văi ('valleys') dulău ('mastiff'), rău ('bad [masc. sg.]') câine ('dog'), mâinile ('the hands') râu ('river'), brâu ('girdle') Rising Diphthong Examples beată ('drunk [fem.]'), mea ('my [fem. sg.]') Gheorghe ('George'), ne-o ploua ('it would rain on us'), vreo ('some; around [fem., masc. pl.]') (mostly in word combinations) pe-un ('on a'), vreun ('some; around [masc. sg.]') biată ('poor [f.]'), mi-a zis ('[he] told me') fier ('iron'), miere ('honey') iod ('iodine'), chior ('one-eyed') iubit ('loved'), chiuvetă ('sink') găoace ('shell'), foarte ('very') piuez ('I felt [a fabric]'), înșeuez ('I saddle') băcăuan ('inhabitant of Bacău'), ziua ('the day') două ('two [fem.]'), plouă ('it rains') plouând ('raining'), ouând ('laying [eggs]')
Triphthong Examples socoteai ('you were reckoning') beau ('I drink'), spuneau ('they were saying') pleoapă ('eyelid'), leoarcă ('soaking wet') mi-ai dat ('you gave me'), ia-i ('take them') iau ('I take'), suiau ('they were climbing') iei ('you take'), piei ('skins') eu ('I [myself]') i-oi da ('I might give him'), picioică ('potato [regionalism]') maiou ('undershirt') leoaică ('lioness'), rusoaică ('Russian woman') înșeuai ('[you] were saddling') înșeuau ('[they] were saddling') rouăi ('of the dew') creioane ('pencils'), aripioară ('winglet')
As can be seen from the examples above, the diphthongs and contrast with and respectively, though there are no minimal pairs to contrast and . Impressionistically, the two pairs sound very similar to native speakers. Because does not appear in the final syllable of a prosodic word, there are no monosyllabic words with ; exceptions might include voal ('veil') and doar ('only, just'), though Ioana Chițoran argues that these are best treated as containing glide-vowel sequences rather than diphthongs. In some regional pronunciations, the diphthong tends to be pronounced as a single vowel .
Other triphthongs such as and occur sporadically in interjections and uncommon words.
Diphthongs in borrowings Borrowings from English have enlarged the set of ascending diphthongs to also include , , , and , or have extended their previously limited use. Generally, these borrowings have retained their original spellings, but their pronunciation has been adapted to Romanian phonology. The table below gives some examples.
Diphthong Examples yearling 'one-year-old animal (colt)' western 'Western (movie set in the American West)' tweeter 'high-pitch loudspeaker' walkman 'pocket-sized tape/CD player'
Borrowings such as whisky and week-end are listed in some dictionaries as starting with the ascending diphthong , which corresponds to the original English pronunciation, but in others they appear with the descending diphthong .The entries for week-end in several dictionaries specify the pronunciation .
Vowel alternations Romanian has vowel alternation or apophony triggered by stress. A stressed syllable has an open vowel, or a diphthong ending in an open vowel, and an unstressed syllable has a mid vowel. Thus alternates with , with , and with .
This alternation developed from Romanian vowel breaking (diphthongization) and reduction (weakening). The Eastern Romance mid vowels were broken in stressed syllables, giving the Romanian diphthongs , and the open vowel was reduced in unstressed syllables, giving the Romanian central vowel .
These sound changes created the stress-triggered vowel alternations in the table below. Here stressed syllables are marked with underlining (a): Stressed Unstressed IPAand recording carte 'book' cărticică 'book' (diminutive) casă 'house' căsuță 'house' (diminutive) beat 'drunk' bețiv 'drunkard' seară 'evening' înserat 'dusk' poartă 'gate' portar 'gatekeeper' coastă 'rib' costiță 'rib' (diminutive)
This has since been morphologized and now shows up in verb conjugations and nominal inflection: oaste — oști, 'army' — 'armies'.
Consonants Standard Romanian has twenty consonant phonemes, as listed in the table below.
+ Romanian consonants Labial Dental Alveolar Post-alveolar Velar Glottalmediansibilant Nasal Plosive/Affricate Fricative Trill Approximant
Besides the consonants in this table, a few consonants can have allophones: Palatalized consonants occur when preceding an underlying word-final , which is then deleted. argues that the palatalized consonants are underlying, but this analysis is not widely accepted. becomes the velar before , and ; becomes the velar in word-final positions (duh 'spirit') and before consonants (hrean 'horseradish'); it becomes the palatal before , , like in the word human in English, and as a realization for an underlying sequence in word-final positions (cehi 'Czech people' is pronounced , though usually transcribed ).
The consonant inventory of Romanian is similar to Italian. Romanian, however, lacks the palatal consonants , which merged with by lenition (though is retained in the Banatian regionalism), and the affricate changed to by spirantization (regionally retained in the Banatian and Moldovan regionalisms). Romanian has the fricative and the glottal fricative , which do not occur in Italian.
Palatalized consonants Palatalized consonants appear mainly at the end of words, and mark two grammatical categories: plural nouns and adjectives, and second person singular verbs.
The interpretation commonly taken is that an underlying morpheme palatalizes the consonant and is subsequently deleted. However, , , and become , , and , respectively, with very few phonetically justified exceptions, included in the table below, which shows that this palatalization can occur for all consonants.
Voiceless Voiced Consonant Examples Consonant Examples rupi 'you tear' arabi 'Arabs' proști 'stupid (masc. pl.)' nădejdi 'hopes' urechi 'ears';ochi 'eye(s)' unghi 'angle' roți 'wheels' – faci 'you do' mergi 'you go' – dormi 'you sleep' – bani 'money (pl.)' șefi 'bosses' pleșuvi 'bald (masc. pl.)' bessi 'Bessi' brazi 'fir trees' moși 'old men' breji 'brave (masc. pl.)' vlahi 'Wallachians' – – școli 'schools' – sari 'you jump'
In certain morphological processes is replaced by the full vowel , for example in noun plural genitive formation: școli — școlilor ('schools — of the schools'), when appending the definite article to some plural nouns: brazi — brazii ('fir trees — the fir trees') in verb + pronoun combinations: dați — dați-ne ('give — give us').
This may explain why is perceived as a separate sound by native speakers and written with the same letter as the vowel .
The non-syllabic can be sometimes found inside compound words like câțiva ('a few') and oricare ('whichever'), where the first morpheme happened to end in this . A word that contains this twice is cincizeci ('fifty').
In Old Romanian and still in some local pronunciations there is another example of such a non-syllabic, non-semivocalic phoneme, derived from , which manifests itself as labialization of the preceding sound. The usual IPA notation is . It is found at the end of some words after consonants and semivowels, as in un urs, pronounced ('a bear'), or îmi spui ('you tell me'). The disappearance of this phoneme might be attributed to the fact that, unlike , it did not play any morphological role. It is a trace of Latin endings containing (-us, -ūs, -um, -ō), this phoneme is related to vowel used to connect the definite article "l" to the stem of a noun or adjective, as in domn — domnul ('lord — the lord', cf. Latin dominus).
Other consonants